This is a story about Joanne and her family trying to hold onto there lives.

"Daddy stop it, you're hurting us." From the age of one day, I had to
see violence in my house from my father. Belting my mother until she
would drop to the ground pleading to do whatever he wanted, as she had
no more strength to pick herself back up again. "Please Stephen,
please. I'll do anything!" Dad wouldn't listen to what mum had to say,
he would just keep belting her to the ground.
Shock from my mothers face as she looked into the mirror, her eyes would
fill with tears. Bruisers from head to toe, swelling in every part of
her body, pus oozing. She would not dare tell anyone about this from
the threat my father gave her. "If you go and wine like you do, I'll
kill you and the kids."
My sister, brother and myself put up with this for five years and my mum
many before. Till my mum decided this had to stop and she had to brake
the marriage off. As you would, at a young age us three kids cried and
cried because we didn't really understand what was happening. All we
knew was that mum was our mum and dad was our dad and we thought that
parents were suppose-to stay together.
Dad moved out and we visited him every fortnight. My brother and I were
young, we didn't know what was going on but my sister had a fear idea
because she was older. My sister got older and only started seeing him
every so often.
My dad found a girlfriend, who was horrible. She treated us like slaves
and sometimes animals. Her name was Michelle and she had two boys of
her own. The kids started to call our dad, dad. Dad never touched
Michelle or her two boys, Ben and Bart. Michelle tried convincing us
that she was good enough to be called 'mum.' We never dared to say such
a thing to her.
Dad hadn't changed his violent moods, if anything, they got worse in
ways. I guess it was because mum wasn't there for him to take his anger
out on so now he did it to us kids even worse. If anything went wrong
it would straight away be blamed on us kids. Making us three, plus Ben
and Bart, to sit down in the lounge-room till someone told the truth of
who did what. Of-course no-one would confess, so the blame would
automatically be blamed on us three. He would yell his head off. "Why
the f*#k did you do that?" At the same time throwing one of us against
the wall. If it was me; my brother would run to his room screaming with
tears rushing out of his eyes, whilst my sister was trying to stick up
for me. At the same time of throwing my across the room and hitting my
sister to the ground. Rasing his voice at me, he would say "I don't
care if you have a f*#king asthma attack. You can die!" As my sister
and I would both run to our room, he would take the phone off the hook
by throwing it across the room, so we couldn't call the police or mum.
As we were all in our room screaming our heads off. Dad would come in,
hitting us further to the ground till we couldn't go any further down.
Then picking us up by our hair, dragging us outside, chucking us in the
car. He would zoom down the freeway with all his anger thrown onto the
accelerator back to mums. As mum and dad are fighting why we're home so
early, dad would lock the doors and start the car. Ready as ever to
run mum over but just in time mum jumps out of the way, rolling to the
ground. Us kids quickly unlock the door and jump for our lives. "If you
don't shut up Brandi, I'll drive this car off the Hasting jetty with me
and the kids in it!' Mum screams and grabs us kids, whilst dad speeds
off, sticking his head out the window abusing us. Dad did this for many
years till it got to bad to handle.
We were all old enough to make our own decisions, if we wanted to still
visit him or not. I was nine, my brother was eight and my sister was
thirteen. We all decided we never wanted to see him again. We
constantly repeated "I hate him, I hate him and I never want to see him
again!" He stalked my brother and myself at Primary School, whilst my
Uncle Pat, stalked my sister at Secondary College. My dad stalked our
whole family till he walked home from school, and he pretended that he
had no-idea where we lived. He followed us home from school a number
of times. There was this one time he knew we had the day off and that
mum was at work. He decided he would come and visit us without any of
our permission. He came and tried to act nice but demanded to come in.
Of course, we refused to let him in but he would not give up and
started to bash on the windows threatening that he would smash them if
we wouldn't let him in. We rang mum and mum said to ring the police. As
Shane was young, he yelled "Are you calling the police?" As he did
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